The present invention relates to a connector for connection of a wire harness and, more particularly, to a connector having a terminal locking member and wherein the terminal locking member that locks a terminal to a connector housing connects to the connector housing in such way that no transition is made from a temporary connecting condition to a regular connecting condition unintentionally.
A previously known connector for connection of a wire harness is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 7-58629.
As shown in FIGS. 7(a)-7(c) herein, the known connector consists of connector housing A and terminal locking member B, which connects to connector housing A in two stages, a temporary connecting condition and a regular connecting condition.
In the temporary connecting condition shown in FIG. 7(a), misinsertion prevention part 7, which is provided on connector housing A, and collision protrusion part 11a, which is provided on terminal locking member B, face each other, thereby preventing terminal locking member B from being unintentionally put into regular connecting condition with respect to connector housing A.
And in the temporary connecting condition shown in FIG. 7(b), by digital or hand applied pressing down on manipulation part 11b, which is provided on terminal locking member B, misinsertion prevention flexible member 11 is bent downward, releasing the facing-each-other relationship between collision protrusion part 11a and misinsertion prevention part 7.
And from this condition, as shown in FIG. 7(c), by pressing terminal locking member B toward connector housing A, terminal locking member B can move into regular connecting condition with respect to connector housing A.
In doing so, in order to go from temporary connecting condition to regular connecting condition, regular connecting condition cannot be reached unless one intentionally pushes down on manipulation part 11b and separates misinsertion prevention flexible member 11 from misinsertion prevention part 7.
However, with a mechanism such as described above, in order to be able to manually operate manipulation part 11b to release the misinsertion prevention, it is necessary to expose manipulation part 11b to the outside, and because of this, there is the problem that if, while in temporary connecting condition, some outside force should unexpectedly press down on manipulation part 11b, then terminal locking member B will be misinserted.
Moreover, if, by increasing the rigidity of misinsertion prevention flexible member 11, one attempts to prevent misinsertion of terminal locking member B into connector housing A even if an unexpected pressing force is applied to manipulation part 11b, then it sometimes becomes difficult to insert terminal locking member B to achieve a regular connecting condition, thus making it impossible to make the connection.